El McMeen encourages us to listen for the still, small voice of God

El McMeen

In my January 2007 article, I wrote about the many pressures and distractions we have in life, and gave personal testimony about some examples of the miraculous in my life in 2006. I took this step to encourage people to recognize the still, small voice of God in our lives. That voice can occur to us in any number of creative, fulfilling ways. It is a shame when the pace of our lives is such that we don't recognize these wonderful situations when our Creator operates in our natural world. Or when we chalk them up to coincidence.

In the January article, I discussed two sightings of the image of Jesus in my life.
I want to follow up here briefly with the two others I referred to in the January column.

As I wrote earlier, I'm not special-just another person trying to find out about and walk in the Way. The manifestations were personal to me. There have been many other words and interactions with God in the supernatural, but I just want to close the chapter on the image matter.

The third manifestation of an image of Jesus came to me after a revelation to me of the massive extent of the love and respect for Jesus that God had during Jesus's earthly walk. We often reflect on God's love for mankind, which led to sending Jesus on his earthly ministry (John 3:16), but I hadn't really reflected on the power in the love of God for Jesus. That love was evidenced by God speaking in an audible voice at Jesus's baptism (Mark 1:11), and at the Transfiguration (Mark 9:7). These actions by God were rare occurrences, at least in the New Testament, and were tremendous validation of Jesus's long preparation for his short earthly ministry, and of Jesus's divinity.

This revelation came to me in the context of deep study and prayer in the area of healing. When I considered this power, I immediately received an image of Jesus's arm and shoulder in a crowd of people. It's very hard to describe, but it is somewhat reminiscent of a scene from Passion of the Christ that I saw in a trailer for the film. The image has occurred to me several times since.

The fourth situation for me occurred early in the morning of December 28, 2006 in our den, when I was reading the Gospels, reflecting on a sermon by Bill Johnson, the Senior Pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California (www.ibethel.org). In that sermon, Bill said that many Christians focus on the walk to the cross, but not on the walk from the empty tomb. I was reading Matthew 16:21-23 at the time-the passage in which Jesus revealed the necessity for Him to suffer on the cross, and said "Get thee behind me, Satan" after Peter expressed opposition to that plan.

As I thought about that, I took off my glasses, and glanced toward the fireplace screen to the left of my chair in our den. I suddenly saw an image of Christ hanging from the cross. It was startling, and appeared to be a strong confirmation of the critical nature of the cross-the power and glory of the sacrifice represented by the cross.

When I put my glasses on, what I had actually been looking at was a little toy flying horse ornament that my wife had hung for Christmas on the fireplace screen! At the moment, however, that I was considering the deep issues of the cross and the Resurrection, that little ornament clearly reflected our Savior on the cross. Every time I take my glasses off and look at that ornament, I see Jesus on the cross.

I asked my wife to leave that ornament up indefinitely.